Association for Biology Laboratory Education

A Six Elements Method for Teaching Scientific Writing at Scale
    



Advances in Biology Laboratory Education, 2022, Volume 42

A. Daniel Johnson

https://doi.org/10.37590/able.v42.art10

Abstract

Scientific communication helps students learn to state problems and present claims precisely, summarize evidence to support those claims, and demonstrate their reasoning. Regular scientific writing with expert feedback is particularly effective at developing critical and applied thinking process skills. The challenge is how to do this consistently in large multi-section introductory biology courses with multiple instructors. We developed a data-rich Six Elements Method for teaching scientific writing in our multi-section introductory biology courses. It is based in education research and proven practices from the Writing Across the Curriculum/ Writing in Disciplines (WAC/WID) literature. The general method can be repurposed to a variety of courses. In 2020, we tested our approach in online labs, and found it works equally well with only minor adjustments. Discussion focused on how to use compiled data from a class section to adjust our writing instruction strategy, and participants? questions about the process and implementation challenges.

Keywords:  scientific writing, bins-based grading, instructor training, text annotation, data-driven instruction

ViABLE (2021)